Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Writing Advice for the Kids

Buy
lotto tickets. If you don't win, you still have a little piece of
paper. You can use that little slip of paper as a bookmark, and/or to
take notes on. Reading and writing is always good advice for any
fledgling author.

Pseudonymous
Bosch

Pseudonymous
Bosch is the pen name of the author of The Secret Series, a five-book
young adult series that breaks most of the rules but succeeds
wildly because it knows and understands the one secret
(a key word in the series) of novel writing – know your audience
and entertain them.

The
title of the first book in the series is The Name of This
Book is Secret. The author
spends the first 15 to 20 pages telling the readers NOT to read the
book. It's too dangerous. He's not going to tell reveal the name of the
city the story happens in, or the name of the school, or even the
name of the characters, because the readers might figure out where it
happened and that information could prove fatal.

They're
five amazing mystery adventures in which three middle school kids do
battle with a worldwide conspiracy that will stop at nothing – Nothing! – in their quest for the secret to everlasting
life. The stories are wild, completely implausible, unpredictable. Kids love them.

He interrupts the stories repeatedly with asides, footnotes,
digressions and, at one point a five-page comic book showing him
writing the novels by dictating them to a pet rabbit while his cat
offers sarcastic commentary. He also has suggestions for how to
disguise your copies of the book so people won't know you're reading
them.

The
author also has a website, which is not surprising, called The Name of This Website Is Secret, in which he maintains that he is not
the person who has been identified as the author, that the real Pseudonymous Bosch is in
hiding in a cave or the rain forest, he won't say which, and that the
person going around doing book signings, appearing at middle schools
and at writing conferences and workshops claiming
to be Pseudonymous Bosch is actually an impostor.

He
warns his fans in the UK that bookstores there are about to do a
special promotion, selling the five volumes of the series at an
amazing discount, which could be disastrous because more people would
have them, and urges his readers to rush to their bookstores and buy up all
the copies before they get into wider distribution.

The
bit of advice to young writers at the top of this post came from the
site, part of a longer discussion in which he advises readers that
the three rules of fiction writing are "Lie, Cheat and Steal."
And makes the case.

Pseudonymous
Bosch knows kids. Knows the kind of story they like, knows what makes
them laugh, what catches their attention, what keeps them turning
pages. The whole thing is a joke – and he and his young readers are
both in on it, them against the world.

It
works.

WIP
UPDATE – Tuesday's total, 1,037 words. Total to date, 12,778
words. I just keep following the story.

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About Me

Co-founder of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I'm a pirate and a writer, earning a living as a reporter and editor for an online news source while trying to write novels. I'm working on my fifth right now.In that time, I have kept a writing log, jotting down notes after the day's work is finished. I've decided to put it online as a blog, if for no other reason than to save the cost of a new notebook.